The Darkest Temptations
by Saekaeru Kibishii
Summary: Faith is forced to go to Cleveland after Buffy's third and final death as well as the slaughter of a few other Slayers. She must fight off the horde of Fyr’ahktyl demons that killed the others and reclaim the hellmouth. That is just the beginning. . .
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: **Warning! This story will contain violence, a bit of swearing and eventually some semi-graphic sex scenes. (Semi-graphic, which is why it is in Teen.) Slash will more than likely occur, or at least some male on male given the fact the villain is bi-sexual. Character death has already occured and some future character deaths may happen as well. There will also be quite a bit of sadism.

**Mini-Note**: Faith and Robin are officially through and have been for a few months now. Faith didn't join up with Buffy and the others since her mobility is limited due to the ever seeking authorities of the US law.

* * *

"Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. . ." The children began to sing not-so-harmoniously as they peddled their paddle boat through one of the small channels that came from Lake Erie. The water was fairly warm since it was late summer and in the afternoon. Neither of them seemed to agree on a direction that the boat should go in, though, given the fact that one was peddling forwards and the other backwards. The boat was just sitting their since neither child felt like giving in and eventually they both stuck one hand into the water and tried to move the boat though it still went nowhere since they mustered little propulsion. 

"Jaymie!" The boy child shouted at the female child. His curly hair was a rich, honey shade of blonde with almost matching golden eyes. It was clear that he was a bit tall for the age of seven since he stood at about five feet two inches. His awkwardly tall form was garbed in jeans that were tight around the waist and short in the leg and a shirt that was far too long. This awkward choice of clothing was do to his unusually quick growth spurts.

"Michael, just. . ." She grunted. "Give up, let me go where I wanna go!" Jaymie hissed at her brother, though, if you saw the both of them, you'd have a difficult time guessing they were related. Jaymie had straight, long brown hair with baby bangs and striking green eyes. She was quite a bit smaller than her younger brother though she was already beginning to develop the figure of a woman since her puberty had started so early. She was roughly nine or ten years old.

"No, you!" Her brother retaliated and shoved her harshly. She shoved him back, only rather than jerking to the side like he had, he had fallen into the lukewarm water. Jaymie shrieked and began to look around for her brother before the paddle boat tipped and she too was in the water. She eventually bobbed her head to the surface and gulped for air. In front of her very eyes was her little brother grinning mischievously at her.

"You're such a dork!" She declared and started to move back toward the paddle boat, which they both grabbed the sides of. "Now we have to pull it back to shore just to get back on it." She groaned and they both began to pull the boat along until Michael backed into something floating in the water. It was large and fairly heavy, but buoyant enough to move when he ran into it. Michael turned his head to look at what he had run into and let his eyes bulge.

"Jaymie, look!" He exclaimed and his sister turned. There was a man floating in the water, but rather than being face down like all deceased were in the water, he was face up.

"Is he. . .alive???"

* * *

Faith delivered a roundhouse kick to the fifty pound punching bag, sending it flying backwards until the chains tightened with the moveable length, causing the punching bag to snap back in her direction. This was too easy, but it was the largest punching bag she could afford. She seriously needed at least a one hundred pound one so she could maybe sweat a little, that way she would at least feel challenged. 

Regardless of this lack-of work out, she was thirsty and hungry. She abandoned the punching bag for a moment and sauntered off in her sweats toward the small table behind her that had a water-bottle on it. She pulled open the cap, allowing the water to flow and squirted it into her mouth. Since she wasn't all that concerned about the aim, the water sprayed around her collar, almost making it look like she had sweated from that pathetic twenty minute work out.

The brunette Slayer was just about to return to her punching bag when the phone rang. She could hear it through the basement even and she turned on her bare foot's heel toward the stairs and started running up them. The phone had ringed four times now, and in two more her message machine would pick up. Finally the Slayer reached the phone and picked it up off the receiver in a huff of air.

"Hey?" She inhaled sharply through her nose, her heart was pounding and it was hard to breathe. Not because running up the stairs had been hard work for her, but because she was so nervous that she wouldn't be able to answer the phone in time that her heart rate had increased by quite a bit. She had been expecting someone to call for a while now, and certainly didn't want to miss it.

"Hello. . . Faith?" The British former-Watcher's voice sounded uncertain as though he couldn't distinguish her voice through all the huffing she was doing.

"Oh, Giles." She tried not to sound too disappointed. She hadn't been expecting Giles to phone her, she had been expecting. . .well, it didn't matter. The Watcher obviously called for a reason, and she seriously doubted that the reason was to simply chat with her and ask her how she was. "What's up?" She inquired expectantly, knowing something was going down.

"It's Buffy." Giles's voice was even though it hardly held a tone of joy.

"B; what's goin' on with her?" Faith's tone was as even as Giles's was, completely hiding her level of curiosity toward what was occurring, or had occurred, with her golden Slayer counterpart. She cared about Buffy. . .in a very strange and minute way, almost like a sister. . .almost. Faith didn't care about Buffy enough for her to exactly say Buffy was her sister, but she certainly wouldn't say friend either, so sister was the best option. Probably because they had both undergone the same destiny. Or some deep shit like that, she never really liked looking into her own emotions.

"She's. . ." Giles paused, this time his voice cracked. "Dead."

Faith's hold on the receiver loosened considerably, though she didn't drop it. B was dead? Faith would like to say that she was shocked, but, she wasn't, she wasn't at all shocked. Her dream last night. . . "How did she die?" Faith questioned after her hold on the receiver was regained. She had to see if her dream was correct, she had to satiate her curiosity. She was surprised at her lack of concern; maybe she didn't care about her Golden, sister Slayer as much as she thought?

"She was alone; isolated. A large group of Fyr'ahktyl Demons cut her off from the rest of the Slayers and maimed her, but didn't kill her. They did the same to the other Slayers as well. . ." Giles trailed off. "Their talons are coated with some type of poison, even if they hadn't bled to death, they wouldn't have been able to recover." Giles's voice was slowly regaining its composure.

It was exactly like what it was from her dream! These large demons with scales that were a muddy green color had surrounded Buffy. Everything on them could be used as a weapon, the vertebras of their spine protruded from their flesh in spikes, the joints on their elbows were spikes and on their knees. They even had a tail that was pretty much one large spike that had miniature spikes running up it. The tails could move with the flexibility of a cat as well. In her dream, they all gained up on her, hit Buffy with their tails and ripped off chunks of flesh with their sinister, curved talons.

"Giles, were they covered in scales and spikes?" Faith asked. She needed to make sure that they were the demons exactly from her dream, yet she didn't know why. Maybe it was simple curiosity? Maybe it was the needed to avenge her fallen Slayers by verifying the appearance of their killers for major pay-back later. Maybe both? She wasn't sure, but she needed an answer.

"Yes. . ." He sounded weary. It was possible that she knew this if she actually researched Occult books in the past few months, though he doubted it. Sure, she had a lot of free time to herself, not slaying, since she was moving place-to-place from the US to dodge the authorities. Still, she didn't seem like the type to research, just like Buffy wasn't. If Buffy had. . .maybe she would still be alive. "We need you here, in Cleveland to hold things down until we can gather more Slayers."

"It may be a while. I don't have a car and the house I am living in right now would lack phone and electricity if not for me spotting an old friend." She muttered into the phone. "So I may have to hitchhike or smuggle a ride to Cleveland." She contemplated the various ways she could get there and didn't much like any of the options she had. She'd prefer getting a train ride or a bus ride but it was too risky.

"I can send Alyssa to pick you up." Giles proffered, and then realized that Faith had no idea who Alyssa was. "She's a witch, nowhere near as talented as Willow but very helpful. I can't send any of the Slayers since they need to manage things and I can't pick you up either since I need to continue to train them." Giles stated plainly.

"Right, my address is. . ."


	2. Sacred Duty Shit

Author's Note: This chapter is also kind of like the prologue seeing as the main plot doesn't come into effect yet. I just wanted to brush up on Alyssa's character and Faith's thoughts and feelings toward her relocation and having to take Buffy's place. More will be in the next chapter!

Jess5x5: Thank you! This isn't the best my writing style can be but I am writing an original story right now which takes up most of my better writing. The plot will be very interesting to carry out seeing as I keep getting more and more ideas for the demon hordes, the main villain and some character developments. Thanks for your support. :-D

* * *

Faith paced around her house nervously, occasionally glancing at her wrist watch before sighing in aggravation and telling herself that there was nothing to worry about. She was sure that Alyssa had a good reason for being over three hours late, and hopefully the good reason wasn't life threatening because Faith would never, ever get a ride to Cleveland if that happened.

Not that she was particularly excited about leading a bunch of wannabes to fight off some unstoppable, ferocious demonic army on top of a hellmouth. She was pretty damned sure she had already had her fill of apocalypses and demons and evil. Of course, just when she was getting settled into her hardly-slay, run-from-the-law lifestyle, B up and kicks the bucket, for the third and more than likely, the last time. This leaves Faith is left with all the responsibility that her Golden Slayer Sister had before.

Joyous.

Everything she owned for this trip was packed up in her suitcase. She didn't have much seeing as she had to run house-to-house and city-to-city, often acting as a squatter in abandoned buildings and getting various people to hook them up with electricity and running water while she stayed there. This time, fortunately, she didn't have to offer up her body to get things installed; instead it was as simple as running into an old friend who did the job for her for free.

She was grateful for that.

This house, however, was nice. She wasn't sure as to why it was abandoned seeing how it was in pretty good condition. There might have been something wrong with it in the eyes of the previous owners and seeing how the housing economy was bad, maybe no one wanted to buy it due to improper funds? Or maybe something horrible had happened here, like a murder and that was why no one would buy such a lovely place to live? She wasn't sure.

The house was fabulous, though. It was large and roomy with three bedrooms, a study (she could tell because there were built-in bookcases) a basement, a gourmet kitchen and a large dining room. On the first floor was the study, the gourmet kitchen, the dining room and the spacious living room area and the large, master bedroom with an adjoining bathroom and a general bathroom. On the second floor were two of the three bedrooms and just a sitting area with a built-in fire place.

It would be a pity to have to leave it abandoned once again, but she figured it was for the best. Without her presence it could more than likely get back up on the market and sell, hopefully. She certainly didn't want it to be bulldozed or anything of similar fate. It was strange that she could grow so attached to buildings and possessions yet she still had problems, even now that she was 'redeemed' getting close to people.

The brunette Slayer sighed and decided to shove all of these sentimental thoughts aside so she could focus on being angry at Alyssa since the little witch was now three hours and thirty minutes late from the expected arrival time.

At last, she heard the sound of a car pull up into the empty drive way. Faith peered through the cracks between the wooden boards to look toward the car. The car was a family Sudan, nicely shaped but far from sporty. It was a nice, deep green in color rather than the usual red, black, white or gold colors that so many people used nowadays. The driver's door of the green Sudan opened up, and out stepped a girl with curly black hair. She was voluptuous in build, not overweight, just very, very curvy compared to the desired slender look.

The curvy woman, whom Faith assumed to be Alyssa approached the front door only to find it boarded over as well. Faith had long since gotten around the boards by simply unscrewing the door off of the hinges and reattaching it every time she left the house. Alyssa paused at the front door for a moment before hesitantly knocking. Faith seized her suitcase with one hand, hastened over toward the door and yanked it off of its hinges since they were recently unscrewed.

Alyssa's face was priceless. Her dark brown eyes widened and her plump, rich red lips formed an awed expression which greatly amused Faith despite her fairly foul mood with Alyssa for being so incredibly late. Faith glanced over at the witch beside's her face. The witch was short, about three inches below the American average of five feet four inches for females. Her figure was garbed in a suede, black suit with a skirt that went to mid-calf, some tanned tights that matched her Latina skin tone perfectly, and classy, black high heels were on her feet.

More than likely, she was dressed to impress because Faith knew few people that dressed in such formal wear all the time. Except Wesley and Giles, of course, but they were major, BRITISH exceptions to the rule. After seeing Alyssa, Faith wasn't sure whether or not she should laugh or feel strangely awkward for not being dressed as nicely herself. She wore a white tank top with a denim jacket over it, with leather pants and some slightly heeled, knee-high black leather boots which were tucked beneath the legs of the pants.

"You must be Faith." Alyssa said in a warm, friendly voice after regaining her composure. After all, it wasn't every day that you saw someone rip the door off of its hinges. Then again, she did hang around with quite a few Slayers and such displays of strength were normal. Oh, well, maybe it was just the i normal /i part of her that expected first meetings to be a little more proper? Not that there was much normal in her left seeing as she was a witch before she met the Slayers.

"Yea." Faith muttered a reply and toted along her suitcases before dropping them on the large porch. She then pulled the door back onto its hinges and whipped out a screw driver and the screws from the breast pocket of her denim jacket. Faith proceeded to screw them all back into place, silently grateful that none of the people from the nearby, not-abandoned houses could see here. Maybe the fact that Alyssa was over three hours late was a good thing, seeing how it was dark out.

"You gotta be Alyssa, right?" Faith asked just as she finished screwing the last screw into place. It didn't take a genius to know that Alyssa nodded even though Faith's back was turned to the Latina. Faith put the screw driver away and turned back to the witch who just stared expectantly at her. Faith raised her dark brow, awaiting some sort of response from the witch regarding why she was staring, but none came.

"So. . .we goin', or what?" Faith asked with a lazy shrug that brought her arms into the air. Alyssa seemed to snap out of her stare at Faith's words and she nodded vigorously and started walking towards the car. The brunette Slayer seized her bags by the handles and walked toward the green Sudan. Alyssa popped open the trunk, which allowed Faith to toss in her luggage.

"Are you ready?" Alyssa asked Faith with a genuine smile that almost scared Faith. Ever since Alyssa got her she was beaming at Faith and it wasn't because she was scared of Faith. It was actually a friendly expression, which made Faith not only suspicious but kind of paranoid. Rather than answering Alyssa's question with words, she opened the passenger's door to the Sudan, sat down and fastened her seatbelt.

"This is going to be a long ride." The Latina witch warned.

* * *

By the time they arrived, it was a little past two o' clock in the morning. The car had only stopped a few times so they could get something to eat for Faith and so Alyssa could get some caffeinated beverages so she didn't fall asleep. Other times they simply got out to stretch or for bathroom breaks. The breaks, however, were pretty few, so she wasn't sure if they added on much time to the over four-hours long car ride.

Faith got her bags from the trunk and stared at the building they had pulled up into. It had to have been a mansion of some sort, since it expanded on and on in all directions. Was this where they were staying? Did all the other Slayers stay here? Who paid for all of this? Before she could even ask, Alyssa took notice of her expression and informed her with an amused chuckle.

"The Watcher's Council takes care of everything." Alyssa stated with that same big, sincere smile she was wearing through their whole car ride, no matter how tired she got. Faith's eyes narrowed momentarily at the house when she heard that the Watcher's Council was taking care of everything. Her run-ins with the Council were hardly choice and weren't exactly her fondest of memories.

"Is that so?" Faith asked, contempt and suspicion clear in her tone. Alyssa turned to the fellow brunette and let her eyebrows furrow in confusion, causing Faith to smile. So, Giles and Buffy hadn't spilled the beans to everyone about her past? Well, that was certainly good, she didn't know if she could deal with people looking at her as though she were going to torture them for hours at any given moment without hesitation. It was hard to go through the suspicion in order to fit in, and even then, she didn't fit in. Similar to a puzzle piece that was a bit too large.

"Yeah, they also pay for the training equipment, the clothing, the bills and all the other necessities besides the house. They know that Giles is far too busy taking care of the girls to get a job and the girls are far too busy doing their job to get a part-time." Alyssa paused for a minute, taking in Faith's expression which was continually getting darker by the minute. "They have stations like this for Slayers set up all around the world on various hellmouths. We even have cameras that hook up to those stations and the Watcher's Council in case there is trouble."

The original Slayer nodded her head and moved toward the large, double-doors of the mansion. Alyssa stepped in front of her, pulled out her key-chain and unlocked the doors before pulling one of them open for Faith. The Slayer lugged the bags in and took in the mansion's interior with sleepy-eyed amazement. Everything was large and grand in a very classic, elegant way. All of the drapes were thick, heavy velvet and red. The floors were a reddish wood to bring out the curtains. . .everything was decorated so tastefully that she could help but think it was beautiful.

Still ,beautiful or not, she felt out of place.

"I'll show you to your room, Faith. Training begins around nine so you need to get some rest for your big day tomorrow." Alyssa said with that same serene, plastered-on smile that made Faith cringe.

Wonderful.


	3. Meeting the Wannabes

**Author's Note:** Okay, I lied. Still, there is no combat in this chapter, but there will be soon! Soon to come she will start training the Slayers and then we'll cut scene to Michael and Jaymie.

**Jess5x5**:) I am glad the timing was good, though if you don't mind, how was the timing good? Anyway, this chapter is longer than the ones before, just for you!

* * *

It had been a restless, miserable night for the dark Slayer. Her dream was haunted by Buffy and her death, only this time everything was even more vivid than it had been before. She felt like she was there, a living being that was breathing, moving, fighting and watching, yet, she knew she wasn't. Did all Slayers get vivid dreams that eventually became true? And if they did, did they still have these prophetic dreams even after it came true? 

_Buffy leapt through the air, doing an amazing summersault so she could get to one of the isolated, new Slayers. The Slayer had been holding off three Fyr'ahktyl demons single-handedly. The blonde Slayer embedded her axe into the back of one of the demons, who fell to the ground from the force of the hit. Just when Buffy was ready to celebrate over the way to kill one of them, the demon got up and unleashed a terrible growl that echoed through the cavern they were in. _

All of the other demons flocked to their brethren, who simply pulled the axe free from its back with an angry grunt. Buffy and the Slayer were all alone, and it seemed, no matter how strong they were, or how sharp their implements were, that they could do nothing to injure them. Buffy, however, would not go down without a fight. The Fyr'ahktyl demons surrounded her like a great sea, and while she knew she couldn't do damage to them, she wasn't going to cower and let herself be beaten either.

The Golden one leaned her back backwards as far as it could go, slashed a few of the demons and flipped herself backward so her feet kicked some of the demons in front of her. The other, younger Slayer followed this example and began to unleash a full out attack on the demons, even though she knew it was futile. The demons stood their ground, waiting and not even bothering to fight back. It was clear that Buffy didn't like this idea at all.

"Help!" The younger Slayer shouted into the cavern, hoping the other Slayers would come and be able to help them escape. She went back to attacking the demons, and so did Buffy. Their weapons dented, chipped and bounced off of the demon's thick, scaled hide. Their weapons became useless with about ten hits of the demons, and the only thing they were left with were their hands and feet. They began fighting unarmed, and the younger Slayer delievered the first punch.

Their was a grotesque snapping noise as her knuckles and base section of the finger broke.

"We're coming!" There were voice from down the hall, giving them hope enough that with their combined efforts everyone could escape the caverns alive and come back to fight when they discovered how to defeat the monsters. Buffy and the other Slayer fought as vigorously as they could, even though the demons were doing next to nothing to stop their onslaught.

Eventually the younger Slayer wore out, and the demons pounced on her exhausted frame. Buffy understood now. They waited until their victims were weak and had no hope of fighting back, that way not only was their physical strength drained, but so was their will. It was clever, clever and intensely evil of them to do so. Buffy started beating on the demons that were clawing and rendering the flesh of her fallen companion. She hoped that Jennifer, the younger Slayer wasn't dead!

When she began to beat off the demons, she felt the last of her strength fade away. The demons leapt onto her in keen similarity to that of monstrous cats and began to claw into her flesh. The blonde Slayer looked to her right as she lay on the ground, noticing that her companion wasn't dead. They left her alive, alive and horribly injured. Chunks of her flesh were missing; teeth marks betrayed the source of some of her wounds.

Before she bled to death, she pulled a glowing red orb with a white core from her pocket and let it roll through the cavern. The demons didn't seem to notice. Once they were satisfied with both of the victim's mortal wounds, they stampeded down the caverns, surely going to fight off all the other Slayers and leave them with the same, horrible demise.

The other Slayers fought valiantly, but they could do no damage to the demons, which, if anything just let the attacks happen. When all of the newer Slayers were worn out and had no hope of escape, the demons offered them slow torture consisting of ripping off chunks of flesh from the Slayers' form with their teeth or raking large gashes into their body with their talons.

Faith awoke in a jolt; her dream had been interrupted by the blaring beeps of an alarm clock. She looked over at the time and noticed that it was seven o' clock in the morning. Angrily, she slammed her hand down onto the 'snooze' button, which, with her Slayer strength, caused the alarm clock to smash into many, many pieces. The brunette Slayer muttered a sharp curse in the general direction of the exploded fragments of her former alarm clock.

Didn't training just begin at nine, anyway? Whose genius idea was it to come in and set the alarm clock for so early when she was shown to her room after two o' clock in the morning and fell asleep a little after three? Oh, well, she had functioned on less than three hours of sleep before, anyway. She just preferred being able to sleep in like normal human beings could despite the fact that with her Slayer constitution she was fully rested at six hours.

The brunette tossed back the bed sheets and turned herself upright to the side before resting her feet onto the cold, hard wood floors. Of course, one of the reasons she was so cold was that she slept stark nude. With a shiver, she rubbed her arms and padded across the room toward her unpacked suitcase, which she promptly unzipped, opened up and pulled some articles of clothing from. She yawned sleepily, barely even noticing the clothes she had picked and moved across her master bedroom toward the adjoining bathroom.

The Slayer set her clothing on the sink's counter and stepped into the luxurious shower stall that was lined with faux marble. If she were more conscious, she would have appreciated the classiness of this joint and maybe have also noticed how out of place she felt while she was surrounded by nice things. She wasn't conscious, though, and didn't notice such things. She then turned the shower's faucet on to a very hot temperature and began her morning routine.

After she had shampooed her hair with the only shampoo she had, which was raspberry, she lathered her body with body wash, rinsed herself and stepped out of the shower. The towel that she found in the linen closet was very soft and very large, it almost seemed to embrace her body when she wrapped it around her womanly curves so she could dry off. While her body was hugged by the towel, she began to dry her hair so it could be in that wavy style she so appreciated.

One she was done drying herself off, styling her hair, putting on her dark layers of eye makeup and dark lipstick; she got dressed and headed in the direction Alyssa had come from earlier that morning when she first showed Faith her room. Faith, now more awake and aware than she had been when she first arrived at the mansion and when she first woke up, noticed the wonderful things.

The mansion's interior almost had an Italian feel to it. The walls were painted to be an offset cream color, which brought out the various works of art in the hallway which gave it a classy contrast. The works of art were primarily classical and had golden or red-brown picture frames that had edges that were raised from the actual picture. The picture frame color accordingly matched the red-brown in the hard wood floor, which in turn brought out the red in the heavy velvet curtains. The mansion in general was themed around red, gold and silver, making it very royal with an overhanging sense of grandeur.

Faith, with her dark, revealing and tight clothing felt so out of place in this house. She felt like trail-trash amongst a hierarchy abode. The brunette Slayer tried to ignore this as she came to the end of the long hallway, which turned into stairs. There were two sets of stairs, both of which lead to the same place and curved outward and then inward when it finally reached the floor, almost making a circle if not for the flat, straight edged platform the stairs were on and the fact that the two stair cases didn't meet. Directly between the two stair cases was a round, faux marble table with some equally grand faux marble chairs with plush, satin cushions.

She sighed as she finally got down the stairs and looked around in a very lost manner for where she was supposed to go to next. She wanted breakfast, but she didn't know if that was going to happen given the fact she probably couldn't find the kitchen. Defeated, Faith plopped down on one of the chairs at the imitation marble table. She was alone for about the entirety of ten minutes before she heard someone else coming down the stair case. She looked up to see the balding, tweed suit wearing, British Watcher who, as he walked down the stairs, was cleaning his glasses.

After a moment of looking at him, he looked directly at her and offered a grim smile. She wasn't sure if he actually didn't want her in the house, or if her presence reminded him of Buffy. She was positive, though, that he'd much rather have Buffy here than her, making it very possibly a mixture of both of those things. Giles eventually reached the bottom of the staircase and came to sit across from Faith at the round, imitation marble table. When he took a seat, he elegantly folded his legs.

"Faith." Giles greeted with a barely noticeable nodded. His voice was even and almost monotone, though it did not help any bit because the grim expression on his face revealed his true mood.

"Giles." She licked her lips nervously. Being around him made her feel twitchy. He was the Watcher that she had wanted and never got, the Watcher that was kind and almost like a father towards Buffy. It was amazing how much of Buffy's life she wanted, though she could never have. . . it was also astounding that, even while she was redeemed and Buffy was dead, that she felt such bitterness toward the Golden Slayer. Somethings just didn't change, she supposed.

"Giles, I had a dream, about Buffy's death the night before she actually died." She paused, letting Giles absorb and reflect these words. His eyes widened fractionally, and she wasn't sure if she saw resentment toward her not telling him about her dream before Buffy died or if she just saw genuine shock. Of course, there was always that nasty possibility of both.

"Go on." Giles urged with a voice that wasn't nearly as even or boring as the one he had used when he greeted Faith as well as the one he had used when he was addressing her on the phone.

Faith recounted her dream, about how Buffy had died, how the weapons were virtually ineffective, if not entirely so. She also explained how the demons i let /i themselves be attacked so they could purposely wear down the Slayers, giving the Slayers not only physical exhaustion but giving the Slayers the feeling of no hope so they no longer had a will to live. She even explained about the strange red orb that glowed and the white core, and how Buffy specifically took the time to pull out the orb and set it on the ground. That seemed pretty important, too, right?

"This orb could be key in defeating them. . ." Giles said, his voice was once again lacking emotion except she could see the eagerness in his eyes to destroy the monsters who killed not only his Slayer, but countless of other Slayers, too. "Though, if it is in the cavern where they are at, we may have a hard time getting to it. Stealth would be essential in retrieving it, not numbers, most especially if we do not know how to defeat them." Giles explained, which faith simply nodded to.

"Hey, Giles, couldja show me where a girl could getta bite to eat 'round here?" Faith asked almost as though she were bored, simply to hide the fact that she was really, really hungry and didn't like the fact that she was lost and out of place in such a large, beautiful house like this. Ti answer Faith, Giles simply nodded and stood up then proceeded to lead her through the various hallways so she could find the kitchen where she could eat at.

The clock on the kitchen wall was the first thing that caught Faith's mind. It was eight o' five, giving her only fifty five minutes to eat and be introduced to all of the Slayers before training began. The second thing she noticed was the sheer size of the kitchen. There were three ovens, two dish-washers, three fridges, two pantries four sinks and a lot of counter top area around the kitchen. She figured, not only from the size of the kitchen but the size of the house as well that quite a few people lived here. Just how many wannabes would she have to train, anyway?

Faith sighed and walked toward the large, double-door refrigerator, or one of them, anyway. She opened up and had a look around; eventually she left the fridge with a bar of chocolate, a soda and a lunch-meat sandwich. It wasn't exactly the best thing in the morning, but it would provide enough calories and energy to fully wake her up in time for her to train. Which, was definitely a god thing in this case considering there were probably at least a dozen wannabes, if not more.

The brunette then headed into the dining room after Giles showed her where it was at. The dining room was as large as everything else, with two tables that could fit twelve or more people. There were eight wannabes at one table and seven at the other, all chatting away while they ate. Their was also Alyssa, a thin, thin blonde with no curves at all and a dirty-blonde man. They were sitting at a much smaller table separate from the large ones.

Faith motioned toward the three isolated people.

"They are witches. Or, in his case, two witches and a warlock." Giles stated. "Willow, Xander, Robin, Dawn and about twenty other Slayers are in Egypt right now, taking caring of a hellmouth on their own, so we used those three as the magical expertise. Alyssa is a beginner, the skinny blonde girl, Marie, is pretty talented though she has problems speaking and understanding English. The blonde is. . .well, let us that Seth could give Willow a run for her money."

Faith's eyes widened at the mention of Seth. Not only was Seth probably the most powerful male witch on the Northern American continent, but he was cute. . . very, very cute. She shook her head and dispelled such notions with a sigh. If she had any time to have any tension-releases like that, it would be a miracle.

The Dark Slayer plopped down at one of the larger tables and introduced herself.


	4. Of Demons and Vampires

**Author's Note:**The plot thickens! DUN DUN DUN! 

**Jess5x5:**I am glad you appreciate the timing. lol. I am so inspired for this story that I have been updating once a day, and writing six pages or more in an hour despite the fact other things are going on, too!

* * *

Trisha looked upon the beauty lying down on the bed. She was glad that she had taken the poor soul into her house when her children discovered him washed up upon the beach a week ago. Michael and Jaymie were so sweet, always bustling in and out of the stranger's room to see if he was awake yet or not. Always offering his unconscious body things if he would wake up. Why, just yesterday, Michael had said:

"Hey, mister, if ya wake up, I'll give ya a cookie."

Not that that would actually make the man awake from his. . .she was guessing it was a coma, but it was sweet anyway. The strange thing was that the man was frightfully cold to the touch, yet her was alive enough to move in his deep slumber and mutter things in some graceful language that she had never heard before. It was probably the most elegant and beautiful sounding one she had heard.

That was what made her think he was an angel, the language he used. That and the fact he was the epitome of perfection when it came to his looks. He must have been carved from marble by the gods. His skin was a rich, diluted olive giving him a Mediterranean look, though he wasn't quite as dark as they were. He wasn't as hairy, either. His black hair fell down to cover up his eyebrows, though it places it covered up his eyes. She still didn't know the color of his eyes. . .

He was tall, probably about six feet four inches with broad shoulders and a very muscular body. She knew because, despite the fact he was wearing clothing, she had to remove the radiant white robes he was wearing to check for injuries. The strangest thing was that he lacked them entirely, making her very suspicious as well as nervous, there was a possibility it was trauma to the brain, in which case his chances of waking up were even less likely than before.

Trisha reached out to place her hand on the sleeping angel's forehead, and quickly withdrew, he was still very cold. As she touched him, he muttered something in that beautiful, unrecognizable language, only this time, rather than a word, it sounded like a name. It flowed off of his tongue with the same sultry warmth and elegance as all of his words had been in his sleep.

"Angelus." Only this time, his words were filled with hate.

* * *

Faith punched one of the other Slayers hard to the jaw, causing them to stumble back. She withdrew her fist just in time for another one of the wannabes to leap onto her back and start punching the back of her head. Faith ran hard backwards, causing the girl's back to collide with the tree, which in turn loosened her grip significantly. She didn't get up for a while, and the one that she punched in the gut was lying down on the ground groaning.

What a bunch of sissies. How could they defeat a demonic army if this was the kind of shape they were in?

The third Slayer that was supposed to attack faith came in late, since they were all supposed to attack at once, and tried to aim a punch for Faith's side. Faith easily side stepped so she was adjacent to the younger Slayer and punched her in her exposed side. There was a crack of her ribs, and she too fell to the ground from the force of the senior Slayer's punch.

The third Slayer rubbed her side and glared at Faith.

"Oh, come on! I know ya guys can do better than that!" Faith baited which caused them to rise and all three to attack her at once. Faith's elbow met the stomach of one of them and leg kicked another away from her, but her side, which was totally exposed and off balance was round-house kicked by one of the Slayers. Faith grinned despite the pain of the kick. It wasn't as strong as it could have been if it was Buffy, or a really experienced Vampire, but it still hurt.

"Good job, though I think you guys need some work." This made the Slayers groan considering all of them, including the others besides the three, had been training with Faith nonstop for the past week. They were tired and sore because Faith kicked most of their butts, though they were honing their skills little by little. "And remember, if ya gotta attack in groups, do it. This isn't a contest to see who's ego is bigger, there is literally strength in numbers. . .or some shit like that." She waved her hand lazily, dismissing the incorrectness of her statement as well as its depth.

The three Slayers rubbed their various injuries and went back into the line of the assembled Slayers who all didn't want to be selected. Faith looked around, seeing that no one else was particularly thrilled about training. They all couldn't be that sore, could they? They had the constitution of a Slayer and could heal up very quickly! Unless, all of them were just a bunch of chickens who didn't want to be beaten up or if all of them had egos the size of Russia and didn't want to be seen beaten in front of everyone else. Faith sighed and shook her head back and forth.

For someone who was supposed to be running things, they didn't seem too keen on learning from her. It was possible that she was simply going too hard on them. . .or something. Still, she was immensely impatient and needed to get them good in combat soon so they could go avenge Buffy, take down the demonic army and reclaim the hellmouth. Maybe after everyone's abilities were perfected she could go back to not being a team player and revel in her loneliness and run from the law by moving city-to-city? It sounded fun, or at least more fun than this.

"Alright, alright, go take a five minute break. . . or an hour break, I don't care." She shrugged in defeat, and watched the reaction on their faces. If they were children they would be cheering and screaming since it was 'recess' but since most of them were adults, or at least teenagers, they simply gave these big, overly-happy grins and filed off back towards the mansion. Faith sighed and rubbed her temples.

Of all people to train them, why did Giles choose her? She felt so out of place here, and she definitely wasn't the type to take Buffy's shoes and be team captain. Yet, she wasn't going to complain about it either, she'd suck it up and do what was necessary so the apocalypse didn't come down, crashing around her ears. This could be another way of redeeming herself since she still had yet to feel all the way goody-goody. She still felt. . .lost and had these dark urges.

Oh, well, no use in thinking about all that, it would only make it harder to fit in with the junior scouts.

Faith gathered up all of the training equipment and moved it into a pile and kicked it off toward the side so it wasn't in the middle of the mansion's luscious green lawns. After she cleaned up, she wiped the sweat off of her brow, pulled up her hair and wiped the sweat off of her neck and headed inside. Man, she needed food, and she needed a shower, both would be very satisfying for her right now.

As she walked inside, she passed Seth who was simply spilling over a book. God, did he always look so cute, even with a book in his hands and that perplexed look on his face that made his brow furrow? Yes, he did. Faith resisted the urge to go over there and play some of her good ol' charm on him. He was too engrossed in his novel to notice her in the first place, and she was pretty sure that he had his eyes on Stacey, one of the wannabes, not her.

Faith walked toward the stairs to go do what she needed to do, first take a shower, then she'd eat and get settled in. She walked up the stairs and went into her room, once again feeling out of place by all the wonderful things surrounding her. With a huff she walked into her bathroom, got undressed and turned on the shower. When she was done she dried herself off, left her hair wet and didn't bother applying makeup. It'd only sweat off today anyway when she started to train the wannabes again.

The darker Slayer headed back down the stairs and toward the kitchen, by the time she grew close a familiar smell of roasting meat greeted her nostrils in a warm caress. Her stomach growled obnoxiously loud, betraying just how ravenous she really was. She walked through the kitchen and into the dining room, where two roasts were already out and pretty much done. There was also an assortment of vegetable salad with some fruit in it as well as various dressings to choose from.

She took a seat after cutting herself two large pieces of roast and grabbing the assortment of fruit and veggie salad and proceeded to eat. Once she was done with her salad, someone, Tara, in fact asked her something. Faith couldn't hear since her croutons were crunching so loudly when she chewed them.

"'Scuse me?" Faith asked as she continued to chew.

"Are we going to train later today or not?" Tara asked again. Faith looked around the two large tables, seeing that everyone had the same exact question on their mind and none of them particularly seemed too fond of the idea. Faith contemplated this for a moment as she chewed. They needed to get better, and yet, she didn't want to push them too hard and be hated. She already felt lost enough as it is, so being glared at would be even worse for her.

"Do. . .whatever." Faith shrugged.

When she was done eating, at last, Tara got up and took her plates with a grateful smile on her face. Faith briefly returned it, though she knew it was awkward on her account from the way Tara's expression changed quickly after she smiled. Faith was straining things and making everything awkward, yet again, like that puzzle piece that was warped so it was a bit too large but was somehow forced in anyway.

Faith pushed her chair back as Tara walked away and she stood up to go to her room. As she was walking toward her room, she heard someone call her name. With a frustrated sigh, Faith turned to look at who was calling her this time. What was she, everyone's mother? Everyone's guru? Did she know the answers to everything or need to solve all of the problems? Couldn't she have a little free time to herself for once and not be all cooped up?

"Faith," Giles said with a pant in his voice. "I found a first-hand account of the Fyr'ahktyl demons." Giles bent over to catch his breath. Had he actually run simply to catch up with her? Or. . . ? She wasn't sure, and she dismissed her own inquires with a forceful shrug and shove from her mind.

"That's. . .cool?" Faith asked hesitantly. Sure, she was grateful that they now knew something about the demons, but that didn't particularly mean that she was going to run like Giles had or jump up and down for joy or anything. Giles looked at her and gave a strained nod at her statement before clearing his throat.

"Here, we should go to my study where the book is located at." Giles suggested with his British accent being more prominent than usual since he was out of breath. Faith bobbed her head once and followed after him when he began walking up the stairs and through various hallways until eventually they reached a large, mahogany archway which lead directly into an extensive library that was just barely smaller than the size of Sunnydale's library, and odds are, these were all occult books.

Giles walked over toward his desk and Faith followed. He neatly sat into the chair behind the desk, and Faith remained standing in front of the desk. Directly on top of the desk was a black leather bound book with aged parchment and emerald green letters scrawled in calligraphy across the pages. He turned the book to face her and pointed to the letters, which she couldn't read because they were in some ancient language, Latin, she guessed.

"It says that the demons, more or less, and the prized demons of hell. They do not rank the highest, but they are pretty close." He ran his finger over the passage that said those things. "It also says, right here," he pointed to a sentence in the book. "That they can only be harmed by a bronze implement. They will still have their scales that one will have to get through using an unnatural level of strength, but the bronze will actually do something while other weapons won't." He declared with a faint grin on his face. She could see the thought racing across his mind 'revenge.'

"It also says that they have the ability to spit acid, though it normally doesn't go very far." Giles continued. Faith licked her lips in thought, she could probably pierce through their scales, but she didn't think the others could. More importantly, they weren't skilled enough, and there weren't enough of them to face the demons. This pretty much left them in a very sticky situation and a stalemate. What about a way to cure the poison, so their deaths weren't guaranteed.

"Anything 'bout neutralizing the poison?" Faith asked in such a business-like manner that it disturbed her for a moment before Giles answered.

"Oh, yes. . .that." He looked disgusted for a moment. "The consumption of cat's blood shortly after the poison is in effect." Giles didn't seem to keen on the idea of drinking cat's blood, but at least it was a cure. Faith gave him an 'are-you-serious' look, to which he simply nodded. Ew. That was disgusting. She would have to pretend that, if she did get slashed, that she was drinking tomato juice and not blood, or something entirely different than cat's blood.

"Why?" Faith asked.

"Cat's have mystical properties. They are often the warlock or witch's choice for a familiar. They also have a lot of religious influence in Egyptian Culture and other Pagan and Wiccan Cultures." Giles stated plainly while trying to hide the plain disgust on his face.

"What about the orb? Didja find anything 'bout that?" Faith inquired.

"No. I think we should still try and get it before doing anything else, fighting and sending the Slayers in there should be a last resort. They aren't ready, and even if they are there is a simple ratio of numbers." Giles blatantly said, already confirming Faith's beliefs about not being ready.

"Then who will go?"

* * *

Alyssa looked up from the ancient book of spells after she finished the incantation. She closed the book, revealing the cover of 'Shadow Magicks.'


	5. Awaken, Awaken, Eggs and Bacon

**Author's Note: **The connection between Ambrose and Angelus is not explained in this part and it shall not be explained until much later chapters. It help keeps the suspense. Soon Ambrose's place in the story will become evident. Hehhehe. I warn you, this is going to be a long fan fiction. They still have to defeat the demons, Angel has to come to Cleveland still, and Ambrose has to reveal his role in the story. 

This is an extra long chapter, so far it is about double my longest one before this.

**Jess5x5: **It thickens even more! DUN DUN DUN. Ambrose is a hoot. :)

* * *

Trisha came in yet again to check on the man that had been slumbering for so long. She was getting worried that since he hadn't eaten in so long, he would die. She had been able to force water down his throat but she did not believe that she could successfully feed him without causing him to choke. The single-mother had the small bowl of water in her mouth and was ready to pour it into his mouth in small intervals yet again. Hopefully he'd get better soon.

His eyes flashed open, revealing the true, apathetic shade of grey that surrounding his pupils within the iris. He cried out for a moment in pain since he hadn't seen light, even artificial light in such a long time. The man's eyes watered for but a moment before his pupils slowly narrowed and began to adjust to the brightness. Things were hazed, as though he were looking through a poorly cut crystal glass.

Trisha smiled with glee when he awoke, but the smile faded when he cried out in agony. The single-mother determined that his eyes must be in pain because they hadn't seen anything but the back of his lids for so long. She came to his side slowly and laid her hand on his shoulder to try and push him back down since he had bolted to a position where he was sitting upright.

"Don't try and get up too quickly, now. You've been out for at least a week, if not longer. My children discovered you a little over a week ago." Trisha cooed in a soothing voice to try and get him to relax. She was relieved when he took a deep breath of air through his nostrils and decided to lay back. His chest rose and fell a few times in perfect gaps of time, each breath becoming less shallow than the last.

"Can you understand me?" Trisha asked. He had spoken that strange language in his sleep, so she wasn't exactly sure if he could speak English or not. He turned his grey eyes in her direction, though they didn't lock with her eyes. She was concerned that his vision may have been damaged due to the lack of light and then, what she supposed would be bright light to him without being weaned back into it first. After staring in her direction for a long time, his eyebrows furrowed.

"Where. . . am. . .I?" The man asked, sounding immensely pained to speak. While he had gotten a small amount of water a day, she figured that his throat still had to be dry. It certainly sounded like it given how hoarse and warped his tone was when he first formed words. Well, she certainly knew that he understood and spoke English, which, in many ways was a relief.

"You are in Cleveland, Ohio, just off of Lake Erie." Trisha answered as she ran her hand gently over his forehead after abandoning his shoulder. She hoped he didn't mind that she was touching him. His forehead was still frighteningly cold, making her withdraw her hand almost instantly. He was awake. . .yet, he had the temperature that was far, far colder than any able-to-function human should have.

"What," he paused. "Time is it?" He croaked in that warped tone. His voice sounded so awful that it almost made her wince, but she prevented herself from doing so because it would be rude. He did, after all, just wake up from. . . a coma, and hadn't had much water or any food since then so it made sense that his voice was damaged and would remain so for a while.

"It's one thirty-seven in the afternoon. . . Mister?" She hadn't gotten a name from him since he woke up, and she figured he would be staying here for a while, on her insistence, until he got up on his feet and was able to go back to his normal life before he slipped into a comatose state. How did that even happen, anyway? She figured she would ask when he was better.

"Droukas. Ambrose Droukas." He pronounced his name perfectly despite his warped voice. Most American would pronounce it like 'Am' as in ham, 'brose' as in rows with a b in front of it. He, however, pronounced it the Greek way, 'Amm' as in um, only with an A, broze, which sounded similar to rose only with a z-sounding s. His vision was returning, and quite quickly. Her hand was nearby his body, and he could catch her scent in his nostrils. . .she smelt lovely.

"Pleased to meet you, I am Trisha Rhinehart. I have two children as well, Michael and Jaymie. Would you like to meet them?" She inquired softly. She knew she was probably pestering him by asking all these questions when he should be getting some rest. It was just that, she was so curious about him, and now that he was awake, she could slowly satiate her curiosity.

He simply nodded his head in answer to meeting her children. She sauntered off down the hallway to get them while he pulled himself into an upright sitting position. Ambrose double-took at his clothes, and an expression of disgust became plastered onto his face momentarily. Where were his cargo camouflage pants? Where was his white wife beater and his military combat boots? Where were his dog tags from World War Two at? He had those even since he killed Viktor, and if he did find them. . .!

Trisha returned with her children and saw him sitting upright. She sighed; there was no use in trying to get Ambrose to lie down if he was just going to sit back up again. Michael was the first to rush by his side, Jaymie, however, stayed in the back of the room giving him distrusting looks. Michael began to ask multiple questions and wouldn't stop. Like, where was he from? How did Ambrose end up in a coma? Did he like any sports? The list went on.

Ambrose only answered a few before seizing Michael's throat with his hand, this caused Trisha to shriek and rush toward Ambrose to try and get him to unhand her child. With his free hand, he shoved her back with immense strength, and she ended up leaving a small crater in the wall. She was still conscious, but in a lot of pain. Jaymie remained paralyzed with fear, and in an instant, darted out of the room. Ambrose wouldn't let her escape that easily. . .

He tore out Michael's jugular, and the boy stopped struggling. Michael's body became less and less tense until finally it was as limp as a wet noodle in his arms. His blood lust and his hunger, however, were still not satisfied so he tossed the boy aside, flinging him into the nearby glass doors which lead out onto the balcony. The glass exploded and Michael's body skidded to a halt on the concrete terrace, though no blood came despite the fact glass was perforating his flesh.

Trisha was just beginning to recover from the crater when he pulled her out and slammed her back in again. She cried out in agony, and then he abruptly stopped. He threw her onto the bed he was just lying on, and that was when she started praying. She figured that he was going to violate her. He, however, left her there, paralyzed in fear as she prayed to God for mercy and divine intervention.

The just-awaken man darted down the hallway and then down the stairs, figuring that Jaymie was nearby. He could hear her heart pounding with adrenaline and the need to survive and he could smell her fear which made her already delectable scent all the more intoxicating. A shiver was sent down his spine as he gained on her. She was trying to find the exit to the house, but in her moment of fear, she had forgotten where it was and was instead running around looking for a window.

He paused, letting her almost reach won just to give her hope of escaping. When she was starting to climb out, he jerked her back inside by the foot, causing her jaw to knock hard against the window sill. With another forceful jerk, she was on the floor. He smiled down at her with a closed mouth. She was hitting him and smashing her fists into his face which did next to nothing to the monster. He just grinned even deeper with closed lips before letting his mouth open up. The remaining blood of her brother showered her face, which caused her to weep hysterically in angry. Her small chest heaved up and down with uncontrollable sobs.

With an angry cry, she shoved her foot between the legs of the attacker who had her pinned. Ambrose fell backwards, clutching his inner thighs from the pain that surged through his groin. Now that Jaymie was unpinned, she took off through the window and began running through the woods near Lake Erie's water front, screaming for someone to help her. Then, she realized that screaming was bad because he could catch up with her, and she remained silent.

Ambrose sprinted up the stairs with a butcher's knife in his hand after shortly visiting the kitchen. The woman was still praying with glazed over eyes, muttering things about Jesus and God and the good will of the Lord. He came along side the bed with the butcher's knife it his hand.

"Now, we're going to play a little game, Trisha." He began with a grin. "I lead you out into the woods, and you call for your daughter. If you call for your daughter, all of the pain will stop; all of the physical agony will go away." Ambrose purred in perfection. His voice was no longer warped and instead it was in a sultry, warm tone with clear amusement and mocking in it.

Trisha shook her head with a whimper. Ambrose yanked her off the bed and put her onto the floor and straddled her. That was when he pulled the butcher's knife, but tossed it aside. He didn't need weapons, in fact; it was all the more painful if he did it with his bare hands. He leaned down to her and grabbed her chin with his index finger and thumb, it was a rough grab. He put his lips top her own, and forced his tongue into her mouth. She could taste her own son's blood. He pulled away from the kiss and seized her wrist with bone crushing strength.

Trisha's fragile wrist snapped beneath the pressure, and she howled at how unbearable it was. Her child was murdered, she tasted his blood in her mouth, she was in so much emotional pain. But, there was a way to make it all stop, to make the pain stop for Jaymie and herself. She would call out to Jaymie, and Jaymie could be killed and spared the miseries of this life experience, and then she could be killed. She could call out for Jaymie and make it stop. She just wanted it to stop!

"Jaymie." She croaked with a hysterical sob. She knew what she was doing was wrong and selfish, but she must. Ambrose grinned and released her wrist and instead grabbed her other one and dragged her along into the woods with immense satisfaction. The fear. . .the fear made him feel powerful. He had so much power when his victims submitted because of what he could do to them.

"Jaymie!" Trisha shouted at the top of her lungs as Ambrose remained hidden behind a nearby tree. Jaymie stopped about two hundred yards away when she heard her mother's voice. That had to mean everything was alright, right? The man had left them alone? Jaymie hesitantly came back and ran towards her mother, who, when she saw Jaymie, started sobbing again. The two embraced for a moment, and Trisha entirely forgot about Ambrose as she held her child in her arms. For a split moment, everything was going to be alright, she was in sheer bliss.

"Aww, how touching." Ambrose cooed sarcastically, which broke Trisha out of her fantasy. She clung to her daughter, once again praying to God that she would get some sort of mercy. Ambrose grabbed both of them by their fairly long locks and dragged them back towards the house. Jaymie was no longer howling in pain; instead she just looked utterly betrayed and broken. Her mother had a much similar look on her face and neither of them put up much of a struggle.

He dragged them back into the house over the stairs that lead up to the porch and the front door. Once he was inside, he went upstairs quickly to retrieve the butcher's knife. He slashed Jaymie a few times with it, and she only whimpered and still had that far off look in her eyes. He slashed Jaymie across the throat, and then drank her satisfying, warm blood. He then slammed Trisha's head up against the edge of the coffee table by dragging her there and slamming her back. It would knock her out and do a bit of damage, but nothing life threatening.

The formerly-comatose man walked up to Michael's body, butcher knife in hand and slashed across his throat over the bite marks so no evidence of bites remained. After doing all this, he went to Trisha's unconscious body and placed the knife in her hands. He was sure, that with Jaymie and Trisha's screams, people would have called the police by now. What a scene they would find, too. A mother went homicidal on her children and killing both of them.

Ambrose walked up to Trisha's room, quickly looking for better clothes. He found a pair of sweat-pants with an elastic band and an oversized, plain red t-shirt that he assumed was her night gown. He got dressed and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked at his reflection with a disgusted snarl and then looked to the ring on his left hand's index finger. The ring that gave him his human soul as a veil to cover up his lack of one. It made him appear human to everything, including mirrors. He threw a pot at the mirror causing it to shatter.

The human seeming vampire headed out of the house. The sunlight's rays would occasionally slip through the canapé and caress his skin. While his humane rind did not given him immunity to sunlight, the ring on his right hand's index finger did. It was good to see that two of his possessions remained on his form! Once he was no longer satisfied with walking, he switched to using his vampiric agility by running through the woods and dodging around trees to remain out of sight. It was time to hit the city. . .and see the very being that had prevented him from dying in the first place.

Tiara the Slayer looked around the nighttime city with pale blue eyes. She drew the hoodie she was wearing tighter around her body to shield her from the strong winds. It had been a lovely day out earlier except when night fell the winds came and made her miserable. She was used to Texas heat, and while she didn't have the Southern accent because her parents were Northerners, she was a true Texan.

Her eyes scanned the city, occasionally passing over good-looking men twice. One such man was tall, at least six feet two inches, with a nicely toned build that was flaunted by a white wife beater and some leather pants and converse sneakers. He seemed a little out of place in the leather and converses, or at least, he seemed like he felt out of place. The pants fit him perfectly, hugging every curve of his perfect, god-like body but they weren't tight enough to flaunt his groin, making it teasing.

When she drew closer to the image of perfection, she froze. His grey eyes rested upon high and hollow cheek bones with hair covering up the eyebrows in a messy and sexy manner. His nose was small as far as prominence went in his profile and medium-small in width across the face. His nose rested above sensuous lips surrounded by perpetual black stubble that emphasized his good looks. His jaw was perfect in shape, defining his masculinity.

She had seen him before.

She kept walking, this time with her head turned, praying that he didn't notice her. She had always been a sucker for him. Even though she knew what he was. . .he was gorgeous, charismatic and smooth, which made her overlook his vampiric qualities, especially since she believed he was a souled vampire. His manipulations, however she had noticed, that as well as the fact his lechery ran so deep that he didn't care where he got sex from as long as they were attractive and between the ages of eighteen and thirty five. Besides his lechery was his manipulations. . .she could turn any emotion she used toward him against her. Even rage.

Ambrose's brow furrowed at the scent of someone familiar. At first he simply thought it could be the person he was looking for, the one who kept him alive when he should be dead. . .but then, it wasn't. It was a feminine smell, probably being one of his lovers since he had so many. He did, however, wonder how she lived. He normally killed his lovers in horrible ways once they got boring. It was so fun to see that look of betrayal, anger and pain crawl across their faces so shortly after an orgasm.

He turned to the source of the scent and caught an auburn-haired woman bowing her head in shame. Her scent. . .she smelt like a Slayer. That only left one option as to who it was. He looked around, and noticed that no one except the two of them were on this side of the street. Ambrose walked past her, offering momentary relief on her account before wrapping his arms around her waist.

"Let go of me, you pompous pig!" She spat as she tried to struggle in his arms. Her full strength wasn't into it, however. Her heart raced at his touch, the lover's remembrance betraying her rage. She also knew that he had personally killed five true Slayers in his past before he was allegedly souled, and didn't think she could struggle against him. His grip against her body didn't tighten, instead his one of his hands caressed her side and his other arm remained around her waist and crushed her back against his torso.

He nuzzled her neck since her long hair was up into a pony-tail. He kissed it once, and then a second time before muttering sensually against her skin. "Is that anyway to treat someone who was your friend. . .more than your friend?" Ambrose was going to kill her, actually, since she was a Slayer. His plans, however, were spoiled when he had to leave Cleveland due to. . .urgent matters in Greece. That was about a year and a half ago. Everything since then was a blur. A giant blur that he couldn't remember at all, no matter how hard he tried.

"Oh," she hissed. "Are you going to say that you missed me despite the fact you ditched me?" She continued to struggle, though her struggles were becoming more weak with each attempt. He was too strong. He was always too strong. Too strong, too smart, too manipulative, too charismatic and too good looking for his own good. She often wondered if he was meant to bed a god rather than a vampire. Then again, given the nickname his lovers gave him, the God of Sex, she supposed that he was one, especially after experiencing what he had to offer.

"I had urgent matters to take care of in Greece." He let go of her waist, and heard a grunt come from her lips. He wasn't sure if it was a grunt of satisfaction that he was no longer holding her or a grunt of protest since she wanted to be held. She turned to face him, her bright blue eyes meeting his mocking, amused grey ones. Oh, how she hated him. He could be so casual about everything, including his past sins and how many lovers she had. Even when she was screaming at him about how unfaithful he was, he simply shrugged and claimed that he never offered her anything more than casual sex anyway. He was right, too. He always seemed right.

"Urgent?" She growled. "Like?" She couldn't help but want answers. She was a pretty girl, and she knew, at least from what he said, that she was a good lover. Why would he up and abandon her so quickly like that without so much of a warning? Did he commonly do that to his other lovers?

"I. . .I don't remember." He stated truthfully. Ambrose figured that she since already thought that he was 'souled', he could milk her for a little more by getting sympathy from her by stating that he genuinely didn't remember. And, for once, he was telling the truth. For once she could tell that he was telling the truth, or at least putting on another one of his highly convincing games for her. She groaned.

"You don't remember?" She asked incredulously, to which he only nodded his head once. She sighed. How could he not remember? Did he hit his head? Had someone done magic on him? He was hated by vampires since he killed and ate his own kind, as well as demons. Little did she know that he was an equal opportunity offender and killed them for fun rather than the fact he was supposed to be ensouled. With a sigh she decided to continue this conversation with the last man on earth she wanted to talk to a few moments ago.

"What is the last thing you do remember?" She inquired, this time her tone was a little softer. God, she was such a sap for him. Her she was, being pissed at him and yelling, and the next moment when he gives her an answer as to why he ditched her, and an unsatisfactory one at that, she is all concerned over him. She needed to work on her composure and stay stubborn, seeking answers and determined around him. Then he might not manipulate her as well.

"I remember hearing about Greece and. . .getting ready to pack. I can't remember why I needed to go. I got packed up and. . .things are a blur from there." He looked as though he were concentrating hard because his perfect brow furrowed. His eyes glistened with pain for a moment. It really hurt to try and think about the last. . . what month was it, anyway? How much of his life couldn't he remember?

"That was a year and a half ago." She stated as though she were reading his mind. His usually calm mocking features shadowed over to shock, just for an instant before he regained his composure and looked as confident and amused as eve. He even began laughing, which was strange for him since he never liked not being in control of the situation.

"A year and a half?" He chuckled. She looked at him for a moment, confused and terrified. It wasn't like him to do such a thing. "What could have happened, in a year and a half?" His laughing stopped but a smile remained. Now he was just in denial and experiencing hysteria.

"Look, I know we are over, that boat has sailed and will never return, but do you have a place to stay?" Tiara asked gently as she laid her hand daintily on her upper arm. He shied away from her touch. While he loved sex, he certainly didn't want it from her. She was right, that boat had sailed, and he would probably kill her soon enough within the confines of her house.

"Where do you live?" Ambrose inquired.

"In a Mansion that is Watcher's Council property. There are a bunch of Slayers there, but you're a big boy and can take any criticism or distrust they put in your direction." She patted his cheek in a baiting manner and started heading off toward the Slayers' Mansion, unaware of the smirk that was growing across his face.

She had proved her use. In a while, all of the Slayers in Cleveland would be dead.


	6. Too Close for Comfort

**Jess5x5:** No problem! This one isn't quite as long, but still fun. :-D

* * *

Tiara brought home the tall, broad-shouldered and toned "souled" vampire to the Slayers Mansion. It was early evening, which meant most of them would be either training with Faith or patrolling, so he should be spared any sort of inquiry until later by the Slayers. The two witches, the Warlock, and the Watcher were home for the evening, though. As long as she could get him, or he could get himself, past them, they would be spared long and tiring questions that would more than likely link to how he got "souled" which was a long, tiring story.

The Slayer grabbed his hand, but he pulled it away. She stared at him with narrowed eyes and then quickly shrugged before putting a finger over his sensuous lips, which made him smirk against her digit. That was before she started darting across the large living room area. Sometimes this house was just plain too huge, any stealthy moment being one of those times, though fortunately there was enough furniture to duck behind. She squatted behind couches and occasionally peeked her head out to make sure the area was secure enough for them to continue.

Just as she ducked the second time, he continued walking rather than ducking behind any objects. She leered intensely into the back of his head, and she was sure he somehow felt it because he turned to give that lop-sided, dark smirk. Ambrose simply turned back around and continued up the stairs since that was where she motioned a while ago. Tiara, defeated, ran after him.

"What do you think you're doing? If they catch you-" She was interrupted.

"If they catch me? They'll do what? Berate me? Interrogate me? Stare at you and think we're involved?" He snorted briefly. "Do you really think I care?" He gave an amused chuckle before continuing up the stairs in a walk so proud and graceful that it would make royalty bow their heads in shame from how clumsy they seemed in comparison to Ambrose.

"They'll yell at _me_ !" She hissed as she followed him up the stairs. She was sure she saw him roles his grey eyes.

"Listen: I. Don't. Care." He stated it plainly and perfectly as though he were talking to an idiot. "Besides, with my hearing, my perception and my sense of smell, I will know if anything is approaching besides you and me long before they get within sight of us. Okay?" The "souled" vampire said bluntly. Had she always been so uptight and obsessed with what others thought of her? Sheesh.

Tiara sighed angrily. Now she'd just have to find him some place to stay. There were plenty of rooms he could be in; in fact, the east wing where all of the currently deceased Slayers had been staying was entirely abandoned. She motioned toward the east hallway, which he turned abruptly on his heel to head down. They walked quite a few feet given the size of the mansion before the hallway opened up to the eastern wing. It, like the western wing, was entirely bedrooms with the kitchen, living room, training room and study smack-dab in the middle of the two.

Tiara walked through the rooms and stopped at the door she recognized the most. Buffy's room. Buffy's room had been the first to be cleared out and stripped of her possessions so it would be the last place they would come for anything, especially looking for a vampire who had hated Slayers immensely before his alleged ensoulment. Buffy's room was also very large, the largest, in fact, even larger than Faith's. She figured if, by any strange chance, anyone did come by, he could find many hiding places within the Golden Slayer's former room.

The Texan led him into the room, which was entirely bare except for a bed, two nightstands, an empty armoire and a sofa in front of the fireplace. The furniture Buffy really hadn't owned per say, so they had no reason to clean it out when they were rounding up her belongings. Ambrose stepped into the threshold, and before he even walked into the room he made an intensely disgusted face filled with abhorrence. He knew whose room this had been.

He turned abruptly to her and the expression melted away and was quickly replaced by a mischievous grin. "Clever girl." He said toward her, and he walked in. Just when she was about to walk in after him to get him acquainted with the room, he slammed the door in her face. Her body was a mere two inches from the door. She stared with shock and rage before 'hmphing' and going on about her own business.

* * *

_She opened up the door to the mansion, pleased to see a familiar face at the doorstep. "Angel!" She exclaimed and got ready to embrace him before playing it cool and leaning against the door's frame. He smiled awkwardly at her greeting before giving _that look _the one that screamed nervous tension. The one that told her he was only here because something grim had brought him here rather than simply desiring to see his "redeemed" slayer. _

"_Faith, I. . ." He suddenly paused when his eyes scanned over a figure that was standing behnd Faith. She herself couldn't distinguish the figure because he seemed shrouded by a red sort of mist. "I wanted to warn you that you're in danger. . ." Angel licked his lips which seemed suddenly dry. His eyes were slightly wider than usual and seemed to be pleading for something to happen, like he was trapped._

"_Angie!" The figure exclaimed sardonically. Its voice was clearly masculine, at least she was able to distinguish the figure's gender by not only his voice, but how tall and broad shouldered he seemed to. Everything else besides the outline of his figure was just veiled by that thick red mist. Angel winced at the figure's nickname for him, but simply stared in the general direction that both Faith and the figure were at._

"_Please." Angel said, and Faith still couldn't tell if it was directed toward her or the figure. Regardless, Angel sounded genuine in his plea and maybe even a little frightened, which made Faith feel totally unnerved. "Listen to me. You're in terrible danger." His eyes were looking deeply into Faith's with that same pleading expression. The figure behind her shrugged._

"_You know, you can always come in. A friend of Faith's is always welcome here." The figure cooed in possibly the most attractive voice she had heard. Angel shuddered, though she wasn't sure if it was because of what the figure said or his tone or simply the figure himself. Angel's eyes were closed tight, and he stepped inside the mansion, his eyes never leaving Faith._

_His eyes. They looked concerned and worried, yet, it seemed as though he couldn't do anything, like he was trapped._

* * *

Faith awoke from the strange dream and shrugged it off. The first part, the Angel showing up to warn her, seemed pretty realistic, but his fear and pleas seemed a little out of character. Especially towards a person she hadn't even met before. With a satisfied grunt at her dismissal of the dream, she sat upright and stretched. Her blanket spilled into her lap, revealing once again that she preferred to sleep in the nude.

Faith spilled out of her room and went down the hall to try and go about her morning routine. Just as she was going to head to breakfast, someone came out of their own room and collided with her. It was Tiara, another wannabe. Tiara started muttering about how sorry she was and how she wasn't paying attention and how it was all her fault. Faith was going to brush it aside until she noticed how frightened Tiara looked. Did Faith really seem like the type of girl to beat someone up for being clumsy? Well, she had been in the past, but she wasn't now, and she took offense to the fact that Tiara seemed terrified over such a simple thing.

"Do I really scare ya that much?" Faith asked while trying to lighten her voice so she didn't seem as upset. She didn't want Tiara to think that she was actually upset over being run into even though that wasn't the reason she was angry anyway. Tiara looked at her with wide eyes, like a deer caught in a headlight. Little did Faith know that Tiara wasn't terrified of her, she was terrified that Ambrose would be discovered and that it would be linked to her. The consequences for inviting a vampire, even a "souled" one into the house had to be bad.

"N-no." Tiara stuttered a response. Faith frowned, it wasn't usual for Tiara to stutter since she was normally a very confident girl. Faith was about to ask Tiara why she seemed to frightened when Tiara pulled herself off and headed toward the end of the hallway to talk to someone else. Faith shrugged and told herself that it really didn't matter what Tiara thought of her, anyway. Yeah. She was a badass, even though she wasn't an evil badass, she was a badass. Badasses didn't care about how others felt towards them.

The Dark Slayer pulled herself up off the ground and headed toward the end of the hallway so she could have breakfast. However, she stopped abruptly and turned. That was when she noticed a hallway she had overlooked before, and something was moving on the other side because she could see a tall, masculine figure. She was going to go through the hallway to pursue the figure when Tiara stopped talking to another wannabe and decided to talk to Faith about something.

The point was, it drew Faith's attention away from the figure and since she had seen it so briefly, when she turned back it was gone and she thought she had to be seeing things due to her nightmares and lack of sleep. She shrugged off Tiara's babbling and headed downstairs to get breakfast without so much as a second thought. She left Tiara on the edge of the hallway, contemplating whether or not it would be best if she introduced Ambrose so the consequences would be lessened for his inevitable discovery or not. He needed a place to stay, and she couldn't just kick him out. . .

Tiara headed down the hallway which lead to where Ambrose had been a few moments ago, by the time she arrived he was already back in his room. She knocked o the door, and after about on minute of waiting there was a voice on the other side of the door which made her positive that he was actually there rather than in another one of the abandoned rooms.

"Yes, Tiara?" his voice was sultry despite it being muffled from the door.

"I think I need to introduce you to the group. They'll eventually find out you're here anyway and if I do-" She was once again interrupted by the "souled" vampire who seemed annoyed with her change in personality.

"You won't be punished as bad?" He hissed. She nodded, and then realized that he couldn't see it, so she decided not to answer because voicing it aloud would be admitting her cowardice. The door opened after a few moments of silence. Ambrose was still in the wife beater and leather pants as well as converse sneakers. She knew that his usual clothing was much more militant than this, so he still probably felt awkward even if it was nice on his body.

"Very well." He said unnecessarily. Tiara turned on heel and headed down the hall, and he moved silently and swiftly across the hall like her shadow behind her. She lead him downstairs towards the dining room since just about everyone would be eating. Tiara knew that no one would be able to sense that he was a vampire, but she figured that informing them would be best in case they somehow found out o their own.

Hardly any eyes turned toward her in the dining room until they began to notice the tall man who was six inches above the average American height of five feet ten inches. He was broad shouldered and well toned, highly attractive. They had never seen him before in their lives, which is what drew the attention rather than the fact he was a vampire. They still didn't know that.

"Everyone," Tiara said loudly. "This is Ambrose." She gulped down the knot in her throat when everyone turned to look at him. "He's a. . .souled vampire." Giles was the first to stand up from his chair, for he put together 'Ambrose' and 'Vampire' and simply skipped the 'souled' part. He looked around his bag for holy water but didn't find any since he didn't believe they would be attacked in the mansion.

"Ambrose the Terrible?!" Giles growled and grabbed a knife from the table. Other Slayers had already begun to do this and all looked testy enough to throw them at the "souled" vampire. Everyone was standing up out of their chairs, seemingly ready to attack. Faith was highly distrusting herself, but the 'souled' part rang in her ears and reminded her of Angel.

"WAIT!" She ordered and everyone stopped. "Tiara says he is souled. Did anyone else hear that?" She nodded her head. "Besides, if you don't believe me, see for yourself." She said confidently. "He doesn't carry the demonic essence like the vampires do." Faith continued. "So everyone chill. I think we should sit down and hear just what Tiara has to say."

Tiara licked her lips sharply as a plan formulated in her head. "Well, I believe. . . he can help us with our demon problem." Everyone else seemed to like this idea, except Ambrose, who turned to look at her with a glare.

"I'm going to do what?!"


	7. Oh, a Hunting We Will Go

**Author's Note: **This'll be a fairly long chapter, I am sorry it's taken me a while to update 'n' stuff. You do, however, get to have a foreshadowing of stuff that will occur later in the plot. You also get to see a language I amde up! I hope it isn't too flawed, if you see an rror, let me know. . .you'll get a cookie.

Oh, and I changed Tara's name to Tiara to avoid any confusion. Yes, we all know Tara is dead, but resurrection is possible in Buffy so I don't want to make anyone confused.

**Jess5x5: **Sorry this took a while to get up! I have holiday stuff going on and I just traveled from Ohio to South Carolina to visit family. Still, it shouldn't have taken me this long. This is a fairly long chapter, so I hope you enjoy!

* * *

"Fuck."

Why was he doing this? Oh, yes, it was because if he didn't, about fifteen Slayers would find a reason to kill him because they didn't trust him. Why didn't they trust him? Because Tiara had to open her fucking mouth and get everyone in trouble. Even though he claimed he was souled, and Tiara backed it up as well as Faith, no one trusted him given his record. After all, what kind of Slayer who hadn't dealt with souled vampires before would trust a vampire who had killed the most Slayers in known history?

He wouldn't have had this problem if they all had dealt with Angie and Bloody. None of them had ever come across Angelus the Redeemed or Spike the Valiant. Bully for him, for he now got to undergo suspicion and mistrust which would kill him if he didn't obey their every and exact order.

Their orders being that since he was a vampire, he would more than likely be able to possess more stealth than any of them had. This, apparently, made him the best candidate to go into a Fyr'ahktyl demon infested cavern. In other words, they didn't want to sacrifice any of the Slayers and who really gave a damn if some allegedly redeemed vampire with a nasty history got killed in the process? It could be a future thorn out of the side, or maybe he'd even be lucky enough to make a dent in the demonic horde before dying by their venom-ridden talons and mouth full of sharp teeth?

He certainly cared for his own existence.

Ambrose was tempted to turn around and leave. Just leave and go far, far away from Cleveland, they would never know that he hadn't died within the caverns by the hands of the demons. However, he had a reputation to maintain as well as his own pride. He was not a coward in any way, shape or form. Sure, he detested the odds of a horde of demons against one unnaturally strong vampire or fifteen or so Slayers against one unnaturally strong vampire. Despite his hatred for being outnumbered, he did get to thinking toward the bright-side of the situation.

The bright sides being, if he did die, he didn't care. Granted, he did enjoy living, but death was inevitable anyway. Death would be another great adventure in store for him, and so would be rebirth. Could vampires even be reborn anyway? Well, actually, the demonic essence within him could move on back to the hell dimensions or pick a human vessel to possess or another undead to occupy. His human spirit, however, since a large part of it was contained inside of the ring on his finger to make him appear ensouled, could not move on until the ring itself was destroyed. The magics trapping it couldn't be broken.

The last and most cheery side of the situation being the orb. Should he manage to obtain the orb. . well, he wasn't sure. After being described what the orb looked like from Faith's vision/dream and being explained as to what they thought the orb would do, it could offer him many things. The appearance of the orb was of no type of jewel he knew of, and he knew of many since he knew about magics. If he didn't know about it, it was either from another dimension, or concentrated magic in its own right, making it special. Further more, if the orb could destroy a horde of otherwise nearly invulnerable demons, what else could it do? What could it do in his hands?

After thinking everything through, Ambrose took another step toward the mouth of the cavern. He stopped a few feet in front of the opening and looked around the forest. The vampire didn't desire entering the cavern to meet a large group of demons and then turn around toward the exit to find his passage had been barred by even more demons. Once he knew that there were no demons without the area, not only from his keen sight and sense of hearing, but also from his sense of smell as well, he entered the cavern.

As soon as he stepped foot into the cavern, a cold blast of wind gusted past him along with a monstrous howl._ It's great to know, _he thought as he took another step into the cavern, _that these demons support cheap Hollywood, horror effects. It really blows the mystery out of proportion and makes this so much more hysterical. _The vampire grinned and continued his way through the cavern. Only after a few effects he noticed a few tell-tale signs that he was, indeed, within the right cavern.

For one, the natural stone floor, which would commonly be raised and dented with the formation of rocks, was smoothed almost perfectly. This meant that beings, probably pretty heavy ones, had gone in and out of this cavern's tunnel many, many times in the past few decades, maybe even centuries. The second sign was the stink. This wasn't a foul odor like one would smell if an animal were to crawl into an isolated region, such as a cavern, and die and rot for a few days. This was stink that was immense and clung to the very foundation with age. It smelt similar to sulfur, too, and this particularly betrayed that the residents were from a hell dimension.

Once he took notice of these things, he continued on his way through the single tunnel of the cavern. It was then that the cavern opened up into a wide chamber with five separate tunnels splitting into many directions. Within the wide opening were a few demons playing some sort of game. One of the demons was blind-folded, and the other demons would come up and hit that demon with a club. Eventually one of the demons would knock the blind-folded demon out. When the blind-folded demon fell unconscious, another demon would rush up an put some oils under that demon's nose. The demon would then wake up and be unblind-folded and have to take a guess at which of the other demons knocked him out.

If he guessed correctly, the judge would inform him that he had, and he was allowed to pick from the female demons that stood nearby. Ambrose knew all this because he was fluent in Ganrthian, a demonic language from Ganrth, the hell dimension, it was the language the Fyr'ahktyls were speaking. The winner would get that female for his mate for the season, and he would also get the most prized possession of the demon who knocked him out, if he guessed correctly. Most of the time the prized possession was the demon's mate.

If the blind-folded demon guessed incorrectly, the demon who knocked him out would get the female mate of his choice and the blind-folded demon's most prized possession. It was a gambling game, more or less, not only for the beings playing it, but the beings watching it. The demons that watched it could make bets, only rather than the prizes being their mates, it would be small chests. Ambrose wasn't really sure as to what was inside the chest, but he knew it had to be something valuable.

The demons' culture was fascinating and deliciously barbaric.

Except, he didn't have much room to compliment since he needed to sneak past about two dozen demons to move onto one of the many chambers and look for the damned orb. It was times like these that he wished he carried a rock or something to that extent. With a sigh he leaned against the cavern's curved wall with thought. There were five tunnels, he could always create a distraction down one of the tunnels while he took one of the other four. But with what? He had no rock, he had no stick. He sure as hell wasn't going to sacrifice his boots or dog tags or his clothing.

There was only one thing he could use. With a defeated sigh he reached into his militant, camouflage cargo pants' pocket, one of the many pockets, and fished out a bar of chocolate. By the Gods, did he love chocolate, and there were only a few times when he would part with the delicious bars. This being one of them since he could get a lot more power. He could always buy more chocolate bars, immense power like this, like what the orb could offer him, would be very difficult to come across again any time soon. The vampire closed up his pocket and hurdled the bar upward toward the other tunnel, that way the demons wouldn't spot it as it flew through the air. When the chocolate bar hit the floor, many demons went into that tunnel and others were simply distracted.

The vampire silently bounded across the cavern's open room and took the tunnel nearest him, the one on his right and the truest right, at that. Once he was inside the tunnel he pressed himself hard against the walls so the demons wouldn't spot him when they came scuttling back to the large, open room. His back remained tightly pressed against the wall as he slid his way down the narrow, long chamber.Occasionally his back would come across one of the protruding mounds of the cave's stone wall and he while it didn't hurt given his tolerance to pain, he was pretty sure something had clawed into his back. Rather than looking back and investigating which part of the stone mound had scraped against him, he continued onward, seeking an end to the tunnel.

At last the tunnel opened up. The tunnel's harsh stone walls became lined with rich tapestries encrusted with gems that surrounded what appeared to be a bed chamber. In the direct center of the room was a large, circular canopy bed with semi-translucent, satin blue curtains that were drawn shut. The satin blue brought out the blues within the tapestries as well as the blue crystal armoire, which was strange to behold since most armoires were solid wood. Or at least, that was from his experience.

Odds were, something as valuable as this orb had been moved into this room if it had been relocated. Just as he took a step into the chamber, there was a stirring from within the bed. Ambrose sniffed the air and was shocked at the scent he discovered. . .lying on that bed was a human being, or someone whose scent could pull of being a normal mortal's very well. He contemplated dashing back and pressing himself against the tunnel's wall, but he was too late. Radiantly pale hands peeked out from the semi-translucent curtains and drew them back to reveal probably the most beautiful human he had ever laid his eyes upon.

"Kmyrk, twer menath." _Kmyrk, good morning. _She spoke softly in Ganrthian, only to notice that whomever Kmryk was supposed to be was not in the room, instead there was a human somehow within her chambers. Rather than screaming, much like he had expected her to do, or call for help, she shot him an icy glare that would normally send shivers into someone. He wasn't easy to intimidate, however.

"Vy dss haaj?" _Who are you? _"Dss uk prov ar, gon dss uk szet!" _You will tell me, or you will be harmed! _Her voice was angry and expectant of him, practically demanding like a monarch would be toward its subject. It would make sense if she was royalty, too, given how well decorated her chamber was as well as her night gown. Her night gown was floor length and showed the finest tailoring he had seen in a long time. It complimented her waist and breasts without being skin tight, and the sleeves were very long and open toward the wrist. The leg of the gown was equally long and flowing. The dress; color was a rich sapphire blue, much like her eyes, with golden embroidery and seams.

"Ar visht Ambrose." _I am Ambrose. _He watched her as her eyes concentrated on his lips as he spoke. Did he have an accent of some sort in their language? Damn it, he hoped not! The woman walked toward him slowly and looked at her hand and then held up his hand. She seemed to be investigating her build and shape versus his own. Had she never seen another human being, or in his case, former human being in her life? Her fingers pressed gently against his lips, and then returned to her side.

"Ambrose, dss jaav gurn n ar telios." _Ambrose, you have been in my dreams._ "Ar kolis behm dss, Ar behm dss nyp." _I don't remember you, I remember your name. _Her eyes scanned over him in a very strange manner. Not only did she not seem to recognize fellow human beings, but it seemed that she could only speak demonic as well. "Dss haaj cin un vy uk ghen ar." _You are the one who will free me. _Her smile was growing with each moment she inspected him. She seemed almost satisfied.

"Lyk qur ar ghen dss?" _Why would I save you?_ He asked with narrow eyes.

"Ar zut pol dss teln." _I know what you seek._ "Un thest." _An orb._ Ambrose looked at her with suspicion, unsure as to how she knew what he was seeking or why. He was going to open his mouth to speak when she put her finger to his sensuous lips once more. "Ar uk y wit dss." _I will enchant you._ With that she placed her fingers to his forehead and muttered something in a language even he didn't recognize. She then seized him by the wrist and pulled him out along the tunnel. None of the demons noticed him, though they did acknowledge her and greeted her with a low mumbling of things. He could definitely understand and speak their language, he just didn't understand what they were mumbling beneath their breath. He assumed they didn't like her much since she was a human.

The woman led him to another tunnel and once they were about halfway down, there was an orb, fitting Faith's description exactly, lying on the floor. Why hadn't they picked it up? Why had they left it lying on the ground? Were they unable to touch it? He turned to look at her, and before he could open his mouth to form words he was interrupted by an answer to his unstated question.

"Jurasa vystel o'shar hon." _We cannot wield it._ "Hon fyk ishtar rretch jurasa." _It is useless to us_. Ambrose reached toward the orb and grasped it within his palm. As soon as he did so, the white core in the middle of the red surrounding it glowed so brightly the entire tunnel, and maybe even the entire cavern was flooding with light. The light was not blinding, though, it was a brilliant, almost unnatural silver that illuminated the entire underground structure like its own isolated moon. Demons were making a great deal of commotion.

"Dss haaj cin un!" _You **are the one**!_ She exclaimed almost proudly, then her smile quickly faded when the demons came scurrying into the tunnel. They all stared directly where Ambrose was standing, for while they could not see all of him, then could see the silver outline of his figure. The orb, in a sense, betrayed him. The demons, rather than attacking him almost seemed to part a small path for him. The vampire wasn't sure if this was out of respect for him, out of respect for the lady, out of fear or maybe simply because they were repelled by the orb.

Ambrose continued moving through the tunnel as the demons parted for him. The woman, whose name he still had yet to learn, followed him out of the tunnel. There were a few angry shouts as to why she was leaving, but before he could fully get out of the tunnel, there was a chant of a single name.

"Kmyrk! Kmyrk!" The chant was guttural inside of the demons' throats. Ambrose looked cautiously around and the woman clung to his arm in immense fear. Hadn't she thought he was this Kmyrk before she saw him? Was Kmyrk her lover? Or did he simply come in every morning because he owned her? Kmyrk, if they were cheering for him like that, was no doubt their best warrior, and in such a society, he imagined that the best warrior was also the monarch of the people. Oh, great. Their best warrior? Wouldn't this be fun? He was glad, however, that Faith had given him a bronze weapon just in case he did have to fight them.

The crowds parted a second time to surround Ambrose as best they could, though they kept a distance. Another figure made his way through the crowds. He was remarkably human looking in his own fashion. . . and Ambrose, if he did not have the ability to see auras and lacked his heightened sense of smell would have believed that he was a human. He wasn't, however. He was one of the Fyr'ahktyl demons, and he was either taking the form of a human or. . . maybe the higher ranking in power the demons were, the more human they looked?

Kmyrk wasn't particularly muscular, in fact he was lithe. When he walked toward the vampire he moved with grace that could turn a cat envious.

"Greetings." His 's's were accented to have a slight hiss, not a lisp, just a hiss, and his 'r's were almost like a cat's purr. "Why is it, human, that you should come to steal my bride and claim the orb for your own?" Kmyrk's 'th's were almost non-existent. Still, his accent was unusual and beautiful, and his voice was sultry, like hot chocolate on a cold winter's eve.

"Well, from what I've been told, your lot can't do nothin' with it anyway. As for the broad. . ." He motioned toward the woman. "She's too gorgeous to let rot underground." Ambrose could have easily ratted her out, but he decided against it, it wasn't in him to snitch. Sure, it would be fun to rat her out, just in case he did lose the fight because then she would be punished, but if anyone was going to harm her, he wanted it to be him. He wanted to witness her pain as he tortured her and broke her will slowly so she begged for death.

"Yes, my little Tylia is beautiful. Come Tylia, return to my side so you will not have his blood sullying your garments." Kmyrk offered out his hand, and Tylia almost seemed to hesitate, as though she wanted to take his hand within her own, then she shook her head at him. Ambrose knew she understood English, now, unless Kmyrk was speaking to her mentally in Ganrthian. If not, at least she could understand English, the speaking part seemed to elude her, or she chose not to speak it for some strange reason.

Kmyrk was enraged by her actions and strode toward Ambrose. Ambrose anticipated anything, and when Kmyrk tried to punch him in the face, Ambrose knocked the demon's hand aside with his forearm, only for his wrist to be claimed by Kmyrk's hand. There was an immense cold energy flowing from Kmyrk's hand, and for a moment, he was sure that he could not move at all. His bones felt frozen and so did his nerves. His skin, when he looked upon it, was a sickly white so pale there was a blue hue to it.

Before the death by cold could occur, Tylia pulled back her hand into a fist and punched Kmyrk hard in the jaw. Kmyrk flew backward from the force of the punch in the cavern's wall. Shortly afterward Ambrose was able to move. Kmyrk started recovering from his impact and looked between the both of them. Rage claimed his face and contorted all of his otherwise lovely features. His eyes which had been a rich, forest green became a frightening shade of amber an horns grew from his temples. Rather than letting the transformation back to his normal state occur, though, he claimed his human facade and shoved the rage away.

The other demons couldn't help, they seemed to want to, but the orb was doing something to prevent them from attacking at all.

While Kmyrk was gathering his wits and planning to attack, Ambrose leaped upon the demon. Rather than allowing Kmyrk to lay his hands upon the vampire's skin, the vampire grabbed the demon's arms and unsheathed the bronze blade. With an impressive display of strength, he mutilated the hand from the stump of flesh that was the wrist. As the demon was doubling over once more in pain, he chopped off the other hand at the wrist. Kmyrk made a strange, guttural noise to call for aid to his minions, but they still could not approach.

Kmyrk fell to his knees, staring at the bloody stumps where his wrists were. They were bubbling and frothing, it seemed as though they had a chemical reaction of sorts to the bronze weapon.

"Or'kinth, vssdyr!" _Mercy, please!_ Kmyrk's voice was no longer sultry, instead it was a squeak of pain and fear all at once. Ambrose enjoyed that sound immensely. The vampire looked to the woman who said nothing, she simply looked at Ambrose casting him a glance that meant she didn't care and it was his decision. The Greek vampire yanked Kmyrk's head by his long blonde tresses to the right, revealing the left side of his neck which exposed the jugular. Ambrose took the purple-blood covered dagger and slashed it across Kamyrk's neck's artery, causing blood to seep freely from the mouth of the wound. The wound was claimed with Ambrose's lips, who held Kmyrk in his arms as the demon went limp from blood loss from both his wrists and neck.

Once Ambrose finished drinking deeply from the luke-warm corpse he rose his head and tossed Kmyrk's body, which had been in his arms, into the crowd. Rather than shock or rage coming from the Fyr'ahktyl demons, there was a low mumbling and a few looks of surprise. Mostly they were discussing things amongst themselves, so low that even Ambrose with his heightened senses couldn't hear it. Tylia poked him in the spine, and he turned to her.

"Shinta haaj itlov fu dss." _They are speaking about you_. She spoke very cautiously, unsure as to what their judgments would be toward the outsider vampire killing their leader, especially a vampire who had appeared human up until he had drank from Kmyrk's corpse. After a long amount of talking, with Tylia insisted he stay for since they couldn't harm him anyway, one of the demons spoke up loudly.

"Ambrose, dss haaj jurasa gutan." _Ambrose, you are our leader._

Ambrose was going to ask why, but then he silenced his own question. This was a very basic, war-based culture, if their leader was defeated, the one, more than likely the male, that was involved in murdering their leader would also usurp their leader's power since he was the most powerful male in the society. The vampire silently wandered how difficult a man who wielded ice and snow would have been to kill if he hadn't had the man's kryptonite, bronze? He reckoned it would be highly difficult if not impossible!

"Ar visht dss gutan?" _I am your leader?_ Ambrose asked hesitantly. All of the demon's nodded their great heads, and Ambrose contemplated what deeds he could do with a demonic army at his command. . .


	8. Leather Pants, Not Good!

**Author's Note: **Things finally start to come together within this chapter and the next one. Everything will start to make a lot more sense if you are confused and things will start to be revealed. This chapter isn't as long as it could be, but it is long enough. Have fun!

* * *

Angel ran his hands down his face as he pulled himself from his bed; there was no reason to lie down when he wasn't going to be able to sleep. Slumber had been in the serious lacking department the past few days, maybe even the past few weeks. There was a familiar nagging sensation at his diaphragm and his mind was brought back to memories of the past, days of a darker evil. Angelus. There were only four times in his life that such things were brought up.

Around Darla. Around Buffy. Around Cordelia. . .and. . .

He didn't want to think about the other time, it sent him chills to think about the other time he was nagged of who he had been.

Still, with this constant feeling and lack of sleep he knew, with or without someone with psychic visions on his side, that something was wrong. Well, something had been wrong even before Buffy's third and final death, but her absence made the gnawing at his stomach feel all the worse. In a situation like this he knew what that gnawing meant. The Slayer was in trouble, and since there were only two Slayers he had that kind of connection to, and one of them was dead, it meant that Faith was in trouble. He would have to go and help her.

The souled vampire hastened across the room and got dressed. What hour was it, anyway? He turned to look at his wrist watch. It was six o' clock in the evening. . .he had laid down longer than he thought while attempting sleep. With a sigh he finished pulling on his pants and started walking across the room. There was a strange creaking noise that caused Angel to pause and look around. There was nothing within the room at all but him. . .strange.

Angel took a few more steps and the creaking appeared again. When he stopped the creaking noise was gone. He then looked down. Encasing his long legs was leather pants, just the kind that Angelus liked to parade around in while causing mass destruction. With a sneer of disgust he changed his pants into some dark slacks and went to find his shoes. The sooner her got to Faith, the better, though he couldn't help but feel that if he got to Faith the more Angelus moments he would have.

The thought made him shiver.

* * *

Faith raised her head from the phone after hanging it up. Giles was standing right behind her, staring at her intently as though he expected an explanation as to who had just called her at ten o' clock in the evening. It wasn't that it was extremely late, it was simply that it was a bit unusual for anyone to receive calls at this hour when most of them wouldn't pick up the phone since the Slayers were usually out training or patrolling.

"It was tall, dark and broodin'." Faith stated with a plain shrug. Giles raised a brow for a moment, silently inquiring as to whom she meant before he realized who she was referring to. Giles' faces darkened considerably, betraying his thoughts and feelings toward the redeemed vampire. Faith knew what that look was. The Watcher was thinking as to why Angel hadn't shown up for Buffy's funeral but he was showing up now. Faith couldn't help leer at Giles.

"What did he want?" Giles asked almost as though he were in pain to speak such words.

"Oh, the usual. Urgent danger. Needs to come down 'n' save me, or somethin'. Is this what it was like with B?" Faith asked a little dejectedly with her arms folded over her chest. Giles simply nodded slowly. His lips were pressed together and his brows were furrowed so close to his eyes that the too were beneath the frame of his glasses. His expression was far from a pleasant one. It border lined on confusion, worry and that whole Angel-has-betrayed-Buffy thing.

"Speaking of which, has Ambrose returned yet?" Giles asked after taking off his glasses and cleaning them by rubbing them against the hem of his shirt.

"Dunno. Figured he'd be back by now, seein' as it's goin' on a little over three hours." Faith gave the trademark shrug she was famous for. Giles looked tired and as though he had aged ten years within the last five minutes. This worried Faith, as much as she hated to admit it, she didn't like seeing those that she was surrounded by stressed out. Probably because she was a little empathetic and it stressed her out. Almost like a contagious disease.

Just as the two of them were thinking about the local vampire the sound of the two front doors opening was evident. The two of them walked over and stared at the door. There was Ambrose, with a sack of cloth in his hand and a girl trailing behind him as silently and as gracefully as his shadow. The vampire turned around and kick both of the doors shut with his feet. When he turned around, so did the very, very beautiful girl who was trailing him.

The vampire then turned back around to notice Faith and Giles studying him.

"Ambrose, lyk fyk hon relmenc dss wyrth Ar thyk?" _Ambrose, why is it that you bring me here?_ The woman asked in Gnarthian to Ambrose without hesitation. Ambrose ignored her and walked toward the two of them. He prayed that neither of them would recognize the tongue that Tylia was speaking as a demonic language. He hoped that they would think she was a foreigner.

Once he arrived in front of them he handed them the sac which contained the orb in it. He knew that if his skin came in contact with it again it would have that very bright glow and betray the fact that he could wield it. If only he could wield it, like Tylia said then they would probably try and make him use it. He only wanted to use it against them when they were secure in their trust toward him.

"Lyk haaj dss nereq caazyn cin thest?" _Why are you giving them the orb????_ Tylia almost seemed to shriek.

"Sylenko!" _Silence! _Ambrose hissed. "Ar visht ghen dss!" _I am freeing you! _Then he turned back to the two of them, yet again praying that neither of them would recognize the language. After the questioning look on their faces he realized that they didn't recognize the language, and that all was more or less well. They might want an explanation. He figured the truth, or well, close enough to it may earn him some brownie points in this scenario.

"She was a repressed human, slave to the leader of the demons. I freed her." Ambrose gave an uncaring shrug and looked back to Tylia who was looking at him perplexedly. He knew that she could understand English; she just didn't seem to speak it much. The woman's face was perplexed, as though wondering why he was saying such things. Wondering why he owed these people an explanation.

"You freed her out of the goodness of your heart?" Giles asked skeptically. How was it that a vampire so Terrible that the word 'terrible' was within his title could be redeemed? Sure, Angelus had been bad back in the day, but he did _not even come close _to what Ambrose had done. The vampire had committed crimes so heinous that even the other demons and vampires believed he was going overboard. He turned a Slayer's lover just so the lover could torture the Slayer and make her beg for death in the end. Then he staked the lover he had just turned and did not give the Slayer the satisfaction of death, instead let her bleed to death.

How was it that he was souled?

"Yes, I did." Ambrose answered boldly. "She doesn't speak a lick of English, though she understands it. I think I'll have to be her translator for the time being." Ambrose looked back to Tylia who still looked confused by his actions. "Anyway, I am beat from that little escapade. You guys can study, or whatever, and I'm gonna find Tylia a room." The vampire motioned for the female to follow him, and reluctantly, Tylia stalked after him yet again.

Faith and Giles stared after the pair that just made their way up the stairs.

"Do you really think he's good, Faith?" Giles asked as he looked to the sac in Faith's hands. Faith gave a shrug, and then a slight nodding of her head. If a man like Angel could be redeemed, why couldn't a man like Ambrose? Giles saw that thought float across her eyes when she nodded. It was the same thought that Buffy had when she was involved with Spike. Giles closed his eyes for a moment.

"I am going to take that to Seth and see what he can make of it. We don't know what it can do, yet, so it is probably a wise idea if he uses some spells to find out its magical properties." Giles held out his hand expectantly. With a sigh Faith passed him the sac and began to walk away from the tweed-suit wearing Watcher. Giles reflected her and sighed as well before walking toward Seth's room.

The walk there was quite lonely since most of the Slayers were outside patrolling rather than making noises within the house. He had grown fond of them all; no matter how loud and obnoxious some of them seemed to be at times. Giles walked up a separate set of stair cases rather than the ones that Ambrose and Tylia walked up and headed down the hall once he reached the top landing.

Once he arrived at the right door he wrapped three times.

The door opened on its own. Giles walked in and saw Seth at large chair with a book in his lap that he was spilling over. The Watcher walked across the large room and as soon as he got within four feet of Seth, the warlock raised his head and met Giles' eyes. Giles was a little startled, mostly because it seemed like Seth was so engrossed with the tomb in his lap.

"Pass it here, please." Seth asked before Giles could even state as to why he was here. Giles passed over the sac, which Seth immediately reached into and pulled out the orb. The orb was a brilliant crimson with a vibrant white core. When Seth touched it, nothing happened at all, rather than the reaction that Ambrose had when he came in contact with it.

Giles was ready to leave, figuring that it would take a while when the warlock cleared his throat.

"There is nothing I can detect. It has an energy key, and only a being with the correct key can use it. I cannot even get a glimpse at its properties unless I am the one whose energy matches. I presume you understand?" Seth inquired lightly with the smooth drawl of his. Giles nodded his head. "It also means that it is safe to touch and hold until it comes across the one with the correct essence. It should be safe for you to hold, even if you are the right being because it will only do what you tell it to, that is, if you are the right person."

Giles reached out and touched the orb. Nothing happened. He was both slightly relieved and disappointed as he brought it against his chest. He would need to study this object within books and see if he could find any lore about it. It would be nice to see if there was a specific description of the being that could control the orb.

* * *

Ambrose brought Tylia into a room near his in the abandoned wing. In all details and respects, he wanted to bring her into _his _room, but he figured that was not the best of plans. Sure, he wouldn't mind raping her even if she were unwilling, but that wasn't exactly his style, he manipulated to get what he wanted. Even if he tried taking advantage of her, he had seen that she had magical properties and certainly didn't want any curses laid on him.

He plopped down onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. He let the hours pass by until a familiar presence drew near to the mansion. Ambrose was able to feel it all the way from within this wing.

It was Angelus.


End file.
